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A Rewarding Journey as ACOG’s President

When I started my term as ACOG’s 67th president last May, I wanted to make a difference in the lives of our members and patients, ensure ACOG’s continued growth, and lift our voice as the leading specialty organization in the nation. In many ways, what we have accomplished in 12 short months has far surpassed my expectations given the complexity of the issues we’ve had to deal with and the extraordinary circumstances we’ve had to navigate and overcome. So, in my last month, I’d like to revisit some of the things that have made this such an impactful year and taken me around the globe.

When I initially laid out my priorities for advocacy and global women’s health, there was no way to know the challenges we would face to protect women’s continued access to reproductive and maternal health care, both domestically and abroad. As my tenure progressed and new challenges presented themselves, increased member engagement became even more essential. So, we leveraged my All-in for Advocacy campaign, an effort to amplify and expand our voice with state and federal policy makers through our member stakeholders. In 2016 and 2017, I traveled throughout the country doing presentations at Grand Rounds and participating in state lobby days and was wowed by the energy and eagerness of our advocates to make positive changes in their home states. Physicians led efforts to support our patients and our practices, successfully advancing legislation from maternal mortality to Zika and defeating legislation affecting the sacred patient-physician relationship and restricting reproductive health rights.

Also, because of ACOG’s excellent government relations team, we launched the State Legislative Action Center, where ob-gyns are able to learn more about their legislature and elected officials, search active legislation, and find opportunities to take action. And this certainly was the year for action! Ob-gyns had an important voice in the discussions on health care reform and urged policy makers not to turn back the clock on women’s health by repealing the Affordable Care Act. We fought for our patients to have continued access to affordable insurance coverage, comprehensive maternity care, no-cost preventive services such as contraceptives, and consumer protections that would prohibit insurers from denying coverage based on pre-existing conditions or setting annual or lifetime benefit caps. And while the fight is not over, the defeat of the American Health Care Act this past March is evidence that we made a tremendous impact.

We have also made great strides in ACOG’s efforts overseas. Through my own personal work to advance health care in struggling countries, I learned that we as ob-gyns can make a difference in global women’s health by sharing our knowledge and resources. However, extended time away from one’s practice is always very difficult and, for some, next to impossible. One of my goals was to make short-term projects easily accessible and identifiable for ACOG members and I am proud to say that we developed a database of non-profit organizations involved in two-week mission work that allows ob-gyns to get more information and sign up.

We’ve also grown the Alliance for Innovation in Maternal Health (AIM), which creates instructional and educational portfolios, or “safety bundles,” to fight high rates of maternal mortality in the United States. Through the hard work of ACOG’s Office of Global Women’s Health, the AIM safety bundle for postpartum hemorrhage has been instituted into practice in a low resource setting in Malawi at a community health clinic and referral hospital. And it has meant so much to me to see the progress made and the lives saved because of this initiative. Additionally, ACOG helps educate and train local health providers in underdeveloped countries in various areas of obstetrics and gynecology through several programs, including Health Volunteers Overseas. I’m particularly proud of this work because I firmly believe that the same high standards we have for health care in the United States are the same standards that should apply to other developing countries around the world.

Lastly, another one of my goals this past year was to continue efforts to address the workforce and practice pattern changes we’ve seen in our specialty by improving ob-gyn resident education models. In 2016, the Council on Resident Education in Obstetrics and Gynecology Education Committee embarked on a complete overhaul of the learning objectives for residents. This effort resulted in the release of the Educational Objectives: Core Curriculum in Obstetrics and Gynecology, 11th edition. We are now surveying mid-career practicing ob-gyns to determine which of the core objectives they actually apply in their practices. Although this was an issue without an easy solution, we must continue to work together and discover ways to improve. And I truly appreciate all the hard work of ACOG’s education staff in helping to facilitate this endeavor.

As I pen my last blog, I feel that my time from president-elect nominee to president has been an incredibly rewarding journey that has literally spanned 400,000 miles, according to my frequent flier program. From trips to the nation’s capital to residencies across the country to small community health centers in Africa, each experience taught me so much and it was a great honor to be able to serve ACOG’s members in the process. If I had to impart any advice to ACOG’s incoming president, Dr. Haywood Brown, it would be to enjoy it because it will fly by. (No pun intended.) Enjoy the year, enjoy the people, and listen to their stories. Everyone has a story!

About Tom Gellhaus, MD

Tom Gellhaus, MD is ACOG President through 2017. He is a Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics in Iowa City, Iowa. Dr. Gellhaus graduated from Yankton High School in Yankton, South Dakota, received his Bachelor of Arts Degree in Chemistry from Augustana College in Sioux Falls, South Dakota and his Doctor of Medicine Degree from the University of Oklahoma in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. He completed his residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics. Following residency, he entered private practice in Davenport, Iowa and after 20 years in private practice, he returned to academic medicine at the University of Iowa.
Over the past 20 years, Dr. Gellhaus has served in many ACOG positions at the local, regional, national and international levels. Dr. Gellhaus’ interests are in the areas of health care advocacy and policy. He has also been very involved and active in global healthcare. He has completed the McCain Fellowship, a month long in-depth experience in advocacy, at ACOG in Washington, D.C. in 1999. In 2001, he was a Primary Care Policy Fellow with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. He has remained active in Advocacy and Policy as a member of ACOG’s Government Affairs Committee and the Ob/Gyn PAC. Dr. Gellhaus has also been very active in leading groups on short-term medical and surgical mission projects for the last 20 years. He has done numerous presentations about these short-term medical and surgical mission projects throughout the United States.